Sister
by SmoochiePooh
Summary: Chapter 27 of Courtney C. Stevens' book Faking Normal from Kayla Littrell's POV. Because, as an older sister, I felt Kayla Littrell deserved a voice and a POV regarding Alexi's revelation. Rated T because of the sensitive subject matter the book covers.


**Author's Note: When I got to this scene in ****_Faking Normal_****, I got wrecked on Kayla's behalf. As an older sister, imagining either of my sisters in Alexi's place was beyond horrifying, and yet, that's all I could think about long after I finished the novel. So I wrote this, partially I had to give Kayla a voice. **

_*For my younger sisters, because I love you more than life. *_

I can feel rather than see Bodee when he joins me on the front porch, where I have been staring at the book in front of me for an eternity as I try to make myself comprehend the poem, the confession, the accusation, the truth it contains. He doesn't say a word, doesn't approach me, doesn't judge me. I don't know why I know he's not judging me, but I can tell from his silence that he's not. Which is awful, because of all the people in the world who deserve to hate me right now, he's near the top of the list.

"You knew?" I whisper.

"Yeah."

"When?"

"End of the summer, after the pool party."

I remember that night, remember the fight, the stalking off, the drinking with my friend Louisa, the tearful apologies three days later. _Three months ago. _My skin crawls to think of all the kisses and cuddling and canoodling we've shared since then. _Three months ago! _My baby sister's been hiding this since July. _THREE MONTHS AGO! _ I can't breathe and my hands are shaking. I am all anger and anguish, hurt and helplessness.

"I know you're upset, Kayla." Upset is the mildest way to put what I'm feeling right now. "And I bet you're hurting in a lot of different ways," I hear him shift, feel his hand on my shoulder. "But she needs her sister right now. She's been alone for so long."

I wonder fleetingly if he's speaking from experience, from being alone for far too long, from desperately needing his brother and having his brother so far away. I turn to him, draw strength from the way he's meeting my gaze, know that if this broken kid can be strong for Alexi that I can be strong for her too. Steel wraps itself around my heart, walls against the man I love. I take the hand he's holding out to me. At his touch, the shaking stops and I feel a sense of calm settle over my shoulders as he puts his arm around them.

She is alone on the couch, sitting stiffly in a silent face-off with Craig. My little sister, who has always been the slim, delicate one, looks even littler, dwarfed by the throw pillows, her face pale in contrast to the dark green blanket over the back of the couch. My beautiful, broken sister. Tears start to fall the second I see her. We join her, surrounding her on both sides. She relaxes as soon as Bodee is in the room and I am momentarily amazed at the gentle power of this boy.

There's so much pain and anger and hurt in her face and I _cannot_ understand how I haven't seen her, haven't seen this. _Three months! _ My brain screams at me and I cannot keep the flood of tears at bay. I sweep her into my arms and I hang onto her like a lifeline in a storm. Which is pathetic, given that this is her storm.

"He did this to you?"

When she nods, all I want to do is pick her up like I did when she was a toddler and run away with her until my feet fall off; mostly because I'm so broken over what this means for her, but also partially because of what this means for me.

"He did this to you." I can feel my world crashing in around itself as I confirm the statement. There is nothing else for me to say beside "I'm so sorry" over and over again.

"I'm okay." Her voice is so small, but brave. I realize that she is trying to take care of _me_.

"No, you're not. You can't be. Because he's still here. How can you be better?"

Because I never want to see him again, because I want to kill him where he sits with his miserable fucking head in his miserable fucking hands.

"Because you know. You finally know...That he raped me." She is crying again and my heart breaks again as I think of the _three months_ that she has had to keep this from me, so that I could be happy. That she dealt with him every damn day. That he used her bathroom and hugged her and looked her in the eye. Rage, white hot and acidic burns me.

"You did this?" I am shouting and I don't care. And then, because I am so angry that it becomes so lethal it is calm and quiet: "_You did this to her." _

And he has the nerve to apologize. To _apologize_. As if this is a forgivable offense. And I lose it, because this, I can do. I've been yelling all my life and all of the emotions I'm feeling right now coalesce and become focused rage.

When he tries to apologize again, I want to shoot Craig and cut him into small pieces and then burn those pieces and then scatter the ashes across Death Valley. And then it occurs to me that what I want doesn't matter, not at all. The only thing that matters is what Alexi wants.

"What do you want, Lex? What do you want me to tell him?" She is curled into Bodee's side, and he is holding her so that her tiny body is blocked from my rage and from Craig with his.

"I just want him gone."

I give him an ultimatum, and he whines. I shout and I threaten and he simpers. I reject him and he begs. And when he moves on to full on pleading, Alexi addresses him:

"Don't you Kayla her, Craig. Don't you ever Kayla her again, you son of a bitch." She's visibly drawing strength from Bodee, but she continues, "There's no coming back, Craig. There's no making this right. There's only you resigning from you job and moving away from Rickman. There's just you, out of this house. Out of our lives."

I am proud, because she has never stood up to Craig before in her life. I am proud because, when I see her strength, I think I see some of myself in her face.

"You heard Alexi, get up." I just want him gone too. Because in a few minutes I won't be able to take this anymore. Damn, kicking him feels good.

"Leave," she says. "_Now_," she says.

And he does.

When I knock on Lex's door that night, I am more surprised than I should be when it's Bodee who opens the door. Bile rises to my throat when I think of the last time I found him in her room and how I treated him, her, _them_. Now I know better.

"Do you mind leaving for a little while, Bodee?"

He looks at her, cocooned in pillows and comforters in her daybed and, after they exchange what seems like an entire conversation in each other's gazes, she gives him an imperceptible nod. He presses the pad of his thumb to his lips and extends it towards her. She smiles a tired smile, but it's the first one I've seen reach her eyes in a long, long time and returns the gesture.

He doesn't take his eyes off of her until the door closes and I feel a surge of love for this boy that I don't know because of what he means to my sister. I can see now the way his love protects her and heals her and I am incredibly grateful (and a little jealous) that he was able to take care of her when I couldn't even tell that anything was wrong.

Without preamble, I crawl into bed next to her. She scoots over to make room and hisses softly when my cold toes make contact with her calves. Once I'm settled, I take her in my arms, cradling her like she's three and I'm ten and there's a thunderstorm raging outside. And just like she did when she was baby, she sighs against my shoulder. For a short moment, I allow myself to go back to that place, back to when we were both Craig-less and she was my baby and I could protect her from bad things.

"Bodee makes me feel safe," she whispers. "I can sleep when he's here."

I nod, not knowing what to say as images from the last three months float through my mind: the dark circles under her eyes, the way her smile slipped when Mom and Dad weren't watching, the bursts of anger that I thought were just bitch fits, the way she wouldn't look directly at Craig...I cringe into the top of her head, because now I can see _signs_ and I hate myself for not putting any of the pieces together.

"I'm so sorry, Lex," is all I can say around the lump in my throat.

"It's okay," she starts, but then amends: "No. Actually it's not okay. But it's not your fault, Kayla."

I squeeze her more tightly to me and she squeezes me back.

"Anything," I whisper into her hair, "anything that ever happens ever again, no matter how big or small or stupid, you can tell me."

"I know. Now, I mean. I think I can be brave enough now. At least, now I know better."

We a silent for a long while.

"Kayla?"

"Mmm?"

"I missed you."

"I missed you too."

My hand finds it's way to her hair and stroke the top of her head and hum tunelessly until she falls asleep. And when Bodee pokes his head in thirty minutes later, he smiles.

_~*~ Fin ~*~_

_Thank you for reading. _


End file.
